


when you're holding onto someone that you gotta let go

by bellamysgriffinprincess



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Minor Bellamy Blake/Echo, Post-Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-12 23:37:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20164507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellamysgriffinprincess/pseuds/bellamysgriffinprincess
Summary: "She isn’t what he needs anymore.Hasn’t she always known, though? Hasn’t she understood since they came back from space and a small girl spoke the name that Bellamy cried in his sleep for years after Praimfaya? Didn’t she realize, in that moment that she was returned to them, to him, that her own time with Bellamy was limited?"or, Echo realizes that Bellamy needs Clarke and that it's time to let him go





	when you're holding onto someone that you gotta let go

**Author's Note:**

> warning: if you do not like Echo, this story isn't for you. This was written from her perspective entirely, by someone who is 100% the trashiest bellarke, but that doesn't necessarily hate Echo. Is she my fave? Def not. But I don't hate her and I honestly feel like something resembling this could be feasible. 
> 
> Either way, the idea wouldn't leave me alone, so here it is :)

_I don’t regret it_   
_ the time we had together_   
_ I won’t forget it,_   
_ but we both ended up where we belong_

* * *

If she’s being honest, Echo is surprised when they don’t immediately go back to Sanctum after Octavia disappears. Instead, they find themselves at Gabriel’s tent with an unconscious girl with tattoos on her face who _still_ hasn’t woken up. Gabriel’s eyes are wide with some mixture of intrigue and worry, Bellamy’s only with frantic fear, and she’s still having trouble keeping up with everything that just happened.

Bellamy asks Gabriel a million questions, his voice strained and Octavia’s blood dried on his hands. Gabriel doesn’t seem to have any answers for him, which only increases the panic in his voice, on his face. She isn’t sure of anything herself, but when she tries to reach a hand out to Bellamy when his own start shaking, he moves away from her and continues to interrogate Gabriel.

Her heart tugs painfully in her chest, but she gives him his space while they try a few things to wake the girl—Hope, right? —up from her slumber. Gabriel and Bellamy spend time looking at a computer screen with a bunch of numbers on it, voices low. She tries to offer suggestions here and there, tries again to offer Bellamy some comfort with a hand on a shoulder, his arm, whatever is within her reach. More often than not, he shrugs her off, unintentionally she thinks, when moving to a different spot in the tent or following Gabriel. There’s once where he turns, acknowledging her, but the weight of his sister bleeding out in his arms and then vanishing is heavy, and it seems that no matter what she does, it doesn’t help.

And she knows why.

The realization aches, of course, but it’s abundantly clear.

She isn’t what he needs anymore.

Hasn’t she always known, though? Hasn’t she understood since they came back from space and a small girl spoke the name that Bellamy cried in his sleep for years after Praimfaya? Didn’t she realize, in that moment that she was returned to them, _to him_, that her own time with Bellamy was limited?

There’s something deep in her gut, a twinge of jealousy and heartbreak that she knows she’ll have to process at some point as the truth settles further and further into her being. Bellamy continues to fret here and there, sweat on his brow and an ever-present tremble in his body, and nothing she does offers any semblance of comfort. Still, seeing him hurting, so hellbent of figuring something out and wearing himself thin in the process, hurts her, too.

He can’t keep doing this, she knows. He’s spiraling, blaming himself, diving further and further into a darkness that she can’t rescue him from.

It’s why, only a few hours later, she excuses herself, says she’s going for a walk to get some air. She trudges the few miles toward Sanctum, right through the barrier that is no longer up, and finds Clarke Griffin in one of the rooms of the palace, sitting beside an unconscious Madi.

Clarke still looks tired, but when their eyes meet, she stands almost immediately, eyes wide with worry.

“Echo?” Her voice cracks. “What happened? Is Bellamy—”

“He’s okay,” Echo assures her quickly. “For the most part, but… something happened to Octavia.”

She does her best to explain, recounting her version of the events, everything from the strange stone underground to Hope stabbing Octavia, to Octavia disappearing from Bellamy’s arms. There’s so much uncertainty, so much she doesn’t understand, but she does her best to fill in any gaps. “He and Gabriel are trying to figure it out now, but, I have never seen anything like it.” 

Clarke listens, but once Echo is finished speaking, she tilts her head, expression wary. “So why are you here?”

A beat passes, her throat feeling tight. It takes her a moment to manage getting the words past her lips, and she’s proud when her voice doesn’t shake. “Because he needs _you_, not me.”

To her credit, Clarke’s eyes only widen slightly. “What do you me—”

“Don’t, Clarke. I know he loves me.” The statement feels heavy on her tongue, her stomach uneasy. She ignores it. “But he loves you, too. I don’t know what it means for all of us right now, but I do know that at this moment, I am not what he needs. He needs you.”

Clarke glances over her shoulder at Madi, who sleeps on peacefully. Echo can feel Clarke’s hesitation before she even speaks. “I… I don’t want to leave her.”

Echo nods, understanding. Each word burns when she says, “I’ll stay, I’ll watch her. I promise.”

“Really?”

“You take care of him. I’ll take care of her. We can… figure out the rest later.” The words sound stronger than she feels, but she knows that this is right. The ache in her chest is dull, mourning more the loss of an idea, of a faraway time where there was only seven people in a big space and nothing was this complicated. She puts those feelings aside—they aren’t what is important right now. “He’s at Gabriel’s tent.” 

Clarke takes a deep breath, but she nods. She takes a moment, bends down to whisper something to Madi. The girl’s eyes peek open for just a minute and she smiles, just a little. Her eyes meet Echo’s from where she lies, and her head nods once before her eyes drift back closed.

Echo sits down in the spot where Clarke was when she arrived. Clarke has put her jacket on and is wringing her hands together. “I… I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”

The smile that Echo gives her is weak, she knows, but she feels genuine when she says, “Don’t be. I know you love him, too. That is nothing to be sorry for.”

“Yeah.” Still, Clarke lingers by the door.

“_Go_, Clarke. Be what he needs.”

And so she does, disappearing out of the room. Echo’s shoulders fall as she sighs, glancing over at the bookshelf to her left and skimming the titles that she sees.

“That was very big of you.” Madi’s voice is quiet when she speaks, a sign of her tiredness.

“You think so?” Echo asks, turning back to the child and watching as one of Madi’s eyes pop back open.

“Yes. You did something that would be good for others even though it hurt you.”

Echo leans back in the chair, picking up one of the books and glancing at the cover for something else to focus on as the corners of her eyes sting. “Yeah, well, that’s probably my limit for good deeds today, so watch your back, kid.”

A bout of breath falls past Madi’s lips, and it takes Echo a moment to recognize it as a weak laugh. It makes her smile, just a little. There’s a silence, and Echo opens the cover of the book and glances inside a bit, figuring Madi will just fall back asleep. So, she’s surprised when the girl speaks again.

“I’ve always wondered how others see them,” she says softly, and Echo gets the sense that she is treading carefully. “I have stories from Clarke, but not from anyone else.”

Echo bites down on her lip a moment, the pain in her chest blossoming. _No_, she pushes back against it. She _did_ do the right thing. She knows that. She’ll be okay.

Madi is just curious, that’s all. She means no harm.

The words still feel a little strange when she speaks. “Would you like to hear some stories about them? From me?”

Madi nods, a little more energy in the action, though Echo can tell she is trying to bite back her smile. The girl rolls over onto her back, twining her fingers together over her stomach, eyes fully open now as she waits.

It’s easier than Echo expected for the stories to flow. “Well, there was one time, right after the City of Light was destroyed. Mind you, I was on what you would probably call the wrong side of things here, but…”

And that’s what she does. She tells Madi stories, some that she saw herself, some that she remembers Bellamy telling while they were on the ring. It’s cathartic, almost, to recount all those moments where she could see how much he adored Clarke Griffin, how often she realized that Clarke felt the same. She knows she’ll never regret the time that they shared there, up in space, with no other problems with the exception of how terrible Monty’s algae was.

So, somehow, she finds comfort in the stories that spill from her. Madi offers a few of her own in turn, spinning stories that Clarke had shared with her in their years together. They do that until there’s a sound from outside, until she peeks out the window and sees Bellamy, Clarke, and Gabriel walking up the path into Sanctum.

The two are leaning on each other, each with an arm around the other. They both look absolutely exhausted, but even so, they each look like they’re holding the other up. When she goes out to greet them, they both hug her without removing the arms they have around each other, and their expressions are both heavy.

Bellamy goes to speak, but she stops him, glancing between the two of them. “It’s okay, we can talk later. Did you figure something out?”

Clarke gives a half shrug. “Maybe.”

She finds out later, from Gabriel, that Bellamy had broken as soon as he’d seen Clarke, that he’d cried into her shoulder for quite some time, Clarke holding him tightly with her own face pressed into his neck. She learns that Clarke had actually managed to get Bellamy to lie down, for just a little while, as she and Gabriel talked a bit, trying to make sense of everything.

She isn’t really surprised.

Plans are made, and it’s one week later, with Octavia returned to them but officially on bed rest for a few weeks, that she finally pulls Bellamy aside and, like she knows she should, lets him go. He hugs her, arms tight around her shoulders.

“I’ll never regret you,” he says, and she nods into his shoulder.

“I know.” Her voice sounds dry. “Me, either.”

It’s another week and a half later that she sees the two of them taking a walk around the fields, hand in hand. Their smiles are bright, bodies as close as they can be without getting in the way of each other’s steps. When Bellamy stops and tugs Clarke into his body, pressing a kiss to her lips with his hand tangled into her hair, Echo watches for only a moment before she looks away. They seem happy, like maybe this is how it was meant to be.

(She knows now, it was.)

Even though it takes her some time, she winds up being more okay than she thought she would be. Life goes on, Bellamy and Clarke stay together, she works with Raven in the mechanic shop and ends up enjoying it, and eventually, everything feels normal. Sooner than she expects, she’s sitting beside Clarke at a big fire, Bellamy on Clarke’s other side, as everyone sits around, passing flasks and trading stories.

It doesn’t feel strange at all. Instead, with Raven on her other side and everyone else they love gathered around or within talking distance, it feels like home.

Clarke passes her a flask after she’s taken her own sip, brows raised. The liquid burns in her throat when she tips the container up, but Bellamy grins at her when she shoves it back at him.

So, she smiles back before returning her attention to Murphy, who is recounting a tale of deserts and land mines with extremely too much grandiose.

Everyone laughs at his theatrics, loud and happy, and she does, too.

(This is definitely how they were meant to be.)


End file.
